FAQs

 

  • Townships are underdeveloped and racially segregated urban and rural areas formed during the century before the end of apartheid in 1994. Townships include Africans, Indians (from India) and Coloreds (mixed race). Some township children have never met a white person before as white South Africans, who make up about 10% of the population, rarely have occasion to enter a township. More than half of the unemployed live in South Africa’s 50 townships. Residents are often challenged by the lack of services for sanitation, electricity, clean water, accessible medical clinics and resources for schools. Poverty, food scarcity, gangs, drugs, crime and overcrowding are problematic in many of these communities. Nevertheless, there is a rich atmosphere and sense of pride in townships, the largest of which is Soweto, with a population of 1,271,628 people. ASAP and our partner PEN are helping communities emancipate from the lingering legacy of apartheid, one Educational Resource and Training Center after another.

  • A creche is a daycare for 20-40 preschool children typically in a small apartment where there are few toys, if any. The caregiver may not have graduated from high school, and children may watch non-educational T.V. all day while their mothers work, look for work, or beg. High quality preschools in South Africa are beyond the financial and geographic reach of the population ASAP serves. However, as soon as daycares registers with ASAP and PEN, we call them preschools, the caregiver/babysitters are immediately called teachers, and the training, borrowing and joy of learning begin!

  • Each kit contains toys and activities which build capacities such as:

    • Perception skills – concentration, logical thinking, cause & effect, memory, language, auditory, color & shape recognition

    • Fine Motor and pre-reading skills such as sequencing, and puzzles

    • Basic math & science concepts

    • Movement & balance includes gross motor skills, body awareness, spatial orientation

    • Music Toy Boxes include instruments for 35 children

  • Our South African ASAP coordinator Marlese Nel, and PEN Forum staff select toys to fit PEN’s theme-based curriculum. Marlese orders items from suppliers she knows having owned an educational toy store herself. The ASAP team and PEN Forum staff assemble the PAL Kits and additional items such as balance beams, hoola hoops, sports equipment, and sets of musical instruments. Kits can be shipped anywhere in South Africa.

  • PAL Kits are stored at the Preschool Library and Training Center Hubs. PEN coach-trainers facilitate weekly lesson planning sessions for preschool owners, who collaborate as they decide on the toys, games, and activities they will use for that lesson. Monthly workshops mentor these budding teachers in early childhood development and they learn how each toy and activity develops critical capacities. Teachers return toys the next week, borrowing a new selection for the next week’s theme and skill development focus.

  • Marlese Nel obtains educational toys often at wholesale prices. Suppliers are excited about ASAP’s mission and keep costs low to help maximize our outreach. Covid increased costs, especially for shipping. Most PAL kits of 5 toys, games, puzzles, sports equipment, and books cost $75.

  • As soon as a daycare registers at an ASAP-PEN Educational Toy Library and Preschool Support Center, the owner and her staff are referred to as teachers, and the daycare is called a school. 

    Owners are entrepreneurs who are thrilled to learn about early childhood development and how the toys and games they borrow, aligned with the theme-based curriculum, ignite skills and capacities in children.

  • ASAP is much more than a “feel-good” opportunity for donors. Donors contribute to ending one of the root causes of generational poverty—the early childhood education gap.  Your donations fund a justice marathon, not an altruistic sprint.  With our effective, simple, and replicable model, we hope to catalyze the systemic and societal changes required for all children to access preschool education regardless of their “zipcode”. 

  • Funds transferred from the U.S. are deposited into the account of the Stella Street Dutch Reformed Church, in Pretoria. Marlèse and Malan Nel, and ASAP team members from the church oversee the allocation of all funds. ASAP seeks funding sources in the USA and South Africa to maximize our current preschool hubs to serve 30 preschools. We can then create additional ones , within reach of the PEN Forum preschool education coaches in the Pretoria-Johannesburg-Soweto area. We guide organizations who want to adapt the ASAP-PEN model in other parts of South Africa.

    • Additional Information about the structure and accountability of Adopt a South African Preschool:

    • ASAP is an official 501(c)(3) nonprofit, registered with the IRS. EIN 87-2630897. Donations are tax deductible.

    • The U.SA.-ASAP board meets regularly and includes an accountant, a preschool educator, a communications coordinator, and the founder, Nancy Schongalla. A larger advisory board is being established.

    • ASAP received $1,000 grants in 2020, 2021, and 2022 from United Christian Church in Levittown, PA which helped cover administrative expenses. Our current model is that gifts from donors fund educational toy libraries in South Africa, unless otherwise designated.